


Understand

by Buttercup_ghost



Series: only one [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Angst, Child Abandonment, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Triggers, Undertale Neutral Route, you can only save one au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:59:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttercup_ghost/pseuds/Buttercup_ghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you can only save one.<br/>it wasn't suppose to be like this</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. memories

**Author's Note:**

> i saw this video and had to write about the reasons why they would choose asgore and the aftermath.  
> video --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIFBKPp-wpw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> walk your way down memory lane

you still remember the heat as you climbed the mountain, how the feather breath of the sky threatened to topple you over.

in the end, you suppose, it did.

_I'm so so sorry frisk, but you can only save one._

chara's word stab your ears, like a clear mirage shattering. the redness of them aches to look at, despite how dim and comforting it tries to be.

 they remind you of a broken bottle, futilely trying to hold and protect its contents.

all the shards of what they used to be can do is cut in the end.

walking around new home, you look at the relics of the past, look at the fragmented memories as if they can hold answers better despite being just as shattered as chara and you.

And as you reach the colidisqop of you through the mirror, you take in you dirty looks, your face littered with scars from fights, your dried tear tracks that stain.

_its still just you, frisk_

you look away.

you walk as though you were a puppet - a thing you have compared your self to far to often, yet is still just as fitting.

you hollowly walk through this life you have chosen, jerking up and down with the strings of this world.

when you reach past the haze of gray and steam, mtt resort greets you 

Mettaton was spared from the fate of your other friends, and was there talking to nabstablook with a heartbroken look

the mesh of corrupted, coded guilt seemed to suffocate you as you think; _if I was a better me, I could have saved her_

you walk past them.

you know he was morning the death of alphys

you had chosen someone over her, as if she wasn't good enough for you to save

 he probably wouldn't want to see you

you rushed through the exit, only pausing when you got a look at the place sans and you had the last of your many dinners

you feel like a character with scripted grief, like a player just playing a part.

you were the one who made this choice.

you don't go greet bratty and catty

alphys was like a big sister to them after all

heaviness settles in to your soul, making it sink faster than a stone in water before reaching your gut

from there it flutters and blooms into full on anxiety and dreed

you avoided the guards who where morning the lost of undyne, their blameful glares cutting you.

the only time you make a pause is when you reached alphys lab

you entered one last time.

you put the noodles you took back

you suppose its some kind of symbolism. of what even you're unsure, the only thing you know is that you felt like you had to even though she was know longer there to enjoy them

you wonder if you never took them, if she would have been the one to enjoy them

but you did take them, not because you liked them, but to serve your own selfish attempts to live after you threw your life away

you suppose that, that too, is symbolism

entering the waterfall was difficult. this place had so many memories..

the water cooler you where you gave undyne water seemed to be taunting you when you rushed past, and the place where undyne fought you brought tears to you eyes

you ran a bit faster, almost like back then

the remembrance of another timeline, a different route better left unfinished and forgotten rose up as you reached the bridge where you ~~slaughtered undyne the undying~~ saved monster kid

you guessed that both the idolizer and the idolized were in danger of falling on this bridge at one point

eyes unfocused, you crossed the bridge and went to undynes house.

it was still burnt down

from the rubble you grabbed a knife

and you kept moving

you hear the echo of a memory and the phantom of dust

_"i still believe in you!"_

your foot stomps his head in the memory, his words still echoing in your undeserving ears

you walk though the cold pathway into snowdin, stopping when you reached their house

you feed sans pet rock

you eat a plate of spaghetti

you curl up on papyrus' bed

then

 you continue forwards

everything feels so impersonal right now, a numbness spreading inside, leaving you wondering if its from heartbreak or the cold

you walk toward the center of town, stopping at the tree there.

you halfway expected chara to say _nothing for you_ , but they remain silent

"man! everyone seems so down! don't they know the barriers open? why are they so sad? everyone is gonna go to the surface!"

 _they're dead,_ you want to say, _they're dead because of me._ _see? this is all my friendship will do. you shouldn't have bothered saving such a despicable being_

you stay quite

in toriels old home you inhale the sent of cinnamon and butter scotch, and it stings of lose 

you wish you had stayed, you had listen.

it seems that, yes, she really did know what was best for you

but, maybe you left because, more than just being afraid she would abandon you, or hurt you, you where afraid _you_ would be the one to ruin it all

guess you managed to do that anyways

you reach where you first fell, chara's grave, you see asriel

"Frisk? are you ok?"

somehow, with those words..

you break down

and

_cry_


	2. surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no one said it was easy, but that doesn't mean its not worth it

"frisk? I have a question? why did you choose dad?"

you wonder if you had just taken sans advise- if you just took what was given to you- this would be better

but you were to determined

you tried to get back to a surface you had given up on, one you ran from

ha ha.

the air in your lungs _burn_ _s_ like a question left unanswered

You guess it is, as you reach for solutions turned to air for a problem without forms or words

you always were a coward

the world gave you the rope but you were the one to tie it around your neck

you don't want to keep hanging here, like a corpse or Halloween prop

have you heard the story of the body on the lawn?

everyone thought it was fake that Halloween night, as the ignored and stepped over it, stepped _on_ it

when they finally realized that its hollow, sunken eyes weren't lies, the police couldn't figure out if it was a suicide or homicide

cause of death?

unknown

you don't want to be that unknown

you don't want to run away, you don't want to give up

you want to face forward

you want to be determined for the right reasons, for a good cause

you want to do good for them.

but.

 _but_ , you still feel the need to flee, flee from your past, from your very self.

you guess that might be why... you choose asgore

guilt, shame, regret.

burdens of the past, they weigh heavily one both your shoulders.

you wont let each other run away.

he doesn't have a paci-angel image in his head, he knows that people who seem happy can not be

savor, or murderer?

sometimes its hard to tell

sometimes you're both

sans was like that to but- he couldn't live without papyrus

you weren't so selfish to take him away from him.

asgore already lost toriel; already lost his world.

as for why not alphys or undyne?

the same reason- you've seen them without each other, and it isn't pretty

papyrus... well, you couldn't ruin him with this, and you couldn't hide it like sans tried to.

he was too good, too innocent, too _pure_

in the end, you guess, he was too good for life itself, for the world

too good for **you,** at least

Toriel... was your mom.

but.. she would have looked at you and seen an angel, and would have looked in the mirror and blamed herself

you couldn't see that- you couldn't see her do that to herself

and you couldn't stay on that petastool for her

you are _tired_

it may be selfish, but you just _can't_ do it

you just- can't.

"frisk... I .. I'm sorry. I.. don't know your life, I don't know why you climbed this mountain. I know why chara did and.. well.. it wasn't a very happy reason."

asgore later asked you to be the monster ambassador.

you said yes

you have to face this eventually.

the home you ran from

....its hard. its hard to prove that monsters deserve the surface- that what you went through in your past wasn't some brainwashing tactic from them

happy ending don't exist

you have to work for happiness, hope that its enough.

sometimes good people get screwed over, you need to be on alert

sometimes being diligent isn't enough but... sometimes it is

and you want to try

but you don't know if you can

asgore finds the knife, rust coating the blade, and softly cries

_its not our fault frisk_

chara says, sadness weighing in their voice like ice that sinks to the bottom of the glass

_we can be happy with asgore now._

_we can **live.**_

you think that you'd like that.

its a summer after noon, and you're sipping tea with asgore

you still remember the heat as you climbed the mountain, how the feather breath of the sky threatened to topple you over.

in the end, you suppose, it did.

but here you were, with someone you now call dad, helping you back up

you made it out of the mountain, and maybe, just maybe..

 that's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the body on the lawn was a real urban legend were I lived and a lot of similar things have happened in the world


End file.
